Boat and Train transportation provided easy access to State's campus in the early years of the university. The campus boat landing
had a path and/or steps up to the campus and was probably just a cleared rock-free area. The landing may have changed over the years due to annual flooding. Regular passenger boat traffic (flat-bottomed boats or packets)
served the area and probably ceased around the begining of World War I with the coming of the railroad and regular passenger runs. Several
companies operated passenger lines through Institute, among them: the Kanawha and Michigan Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad, Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad, and the New York Central Railroad. The small Institute station was probably
in use from about 1900 to 1940. A campus map from 1913 shows the location of both the train station and the boat landing;
a Buildings and Grounds map c. 1950 does not.
After the Army Corp of Engineers placed locks on the Kanawha River estimates are that the original campus river bank was covered by more than 25
feet of water and the campus bank lost between 50 - 100 feet of dry land to the wider river.
Train Station 2
Train Station 3
Faculty 52 (cropped detail) steps down at the back of the campus (?)
Train Station 1 
Train Station 2 
Train Station 3 
